26th May 2004 PhD in Animal Ecology and Ethology 'Ecophysiology of littoral crustaceans in relation to natural and anthropogenic stress factors and their use in the environmental monitoring'. University of Florence (Italy)

Professional membership

Memberships:Society for Experimental BiologySociety for Integrative and Comparative BiologyBritish Ecological SocietyMarine Biological Association of the UKEditor: Philosophical Transections of the Royal Society B special issue on ‘The effect of ocean acidification and climate warming on species potential for adaptation and ecological interactions’

Reviewer for :

NSF International Research Fellowship Program (USA)

Helmholtz-Association of German Research Centres Postdoctoral Programme

(Germany)

FCT Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Research Fellowship Program (Portugal)

Organisation for Scientific Research - Earth & Life Sciences (Netherlands)

Superior Council of the National Fund for Scientific & Technological Development (FONDECYT) (Chile)

Teaching

Teaching interests

Research

Research interests

RESEARCH FOCUS

My main research focus is the investigation of invertebrates' physiological responses, and the determination of the scope for further adaptation, to multiple global environmental drivers: e.g. warming, acidification, de-oxygenation, reduced salinity.

I work at different levels of biological complexity (larvae to adult) and compare strains, populations and species living along environmental gradients. I integrate ecophysiology, life-history and functional behaviour, and more recently transcriptomic and metabolomic techniques, to broaden our understanding of the implication of current levels of adaptation in defining taxa vulnerability to a changing environment. Furthermore, I am interested in determining species scope for further physiological adaptation to rapid environmental changes, and whether such adaptation implies physiological and/or fitness consequences, investigating the responses of clonal strains, using laboratory natural selection experiments and carrying out translocation experiments to compare strains and populations inhabiting contrasting environments.

Ms Emilie Hall (first supervisor) - PhD candidate. Project: Vulnerability to Global Change in marine invertebrates living along a latitudinal and depth gradient: Marine Macrophysiology for a Changing Ocean. In collaboration with Aberystwyth University and University of British Columbia.

Mr Mike Jarrold – Postgraduate Research Assistant. Project: Physiological developmental plasticity and scope for further adaptation in marine worms. Funding: NERC-Defra-DEC and Plymouth University, in collaboration with University of Modena and Reggio-Emilia.

Mr Cameron Hird - Undergraduate Project Student. Project: Physiological and life history plasticity of a strain of the polychaete Ophryotrocha labronica adapted to end of the century PCO2 levels and exposed to extremely elevated pCO2 levels.

since 2010 Dr RK Bechmann ‘The impact of elevated temperature and ocean acidification on the developmental physiology of marine crustaceans’ International Research Institute of Stavanger, Stavanger (Norway).